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In Struts 2, resource bundles can be associated with classes. The framework will automatically discover and load class-orientated resource bundles. You can also specify one or more global resource bundles, which would be available to all classes in the application, using either the standard properties file, or a custom listener.

Properties file

Global resource bundles can be specified in the struts.properties configuration file.

struts.properties
struts.custom.i18n.resources=global-messages

The framework searches the class heirarchy first, then, as a last resource, checks the global resources.

Multiple resource bundles can be specified by providing a comma-separated list.

struts.properties
struts.custom.i18n.resources=global-messages, image-messages

Listener

Aside from the properties file, a Listener could also be used to load global resource bundles.

ActionGlobalMessagesListener.java
public class ActionGlobalMessagesListener implements ServletContextListener {
  private static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(ActionGlobalMessagesListener .class);
  private static final String DEFAULT_RESOURCE = "global-messages";

  /**
   * Uses the LocalizedTextUtil to load messages from the global message bundle.
   * @see
   javax.servlet.ServletContextListener#contextInitialized(javax.servlet.Servle
   tContextEvent)
   */
  public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent arg0) {
    log.info("Loading global messages from " + DEFAULT_RESOURCE);
    LocalizedTextUtil.addDefaultResourceBundle(DEFAULT_RESOURCE);
    log.info("Global messages loaded.");
  }

  /**
   * @see javax.servlet.ServletContextListener#contextDestroyed(javax.servlet.ServletContextEvent)
   */
  public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent arg0) {

      // do nothing

    }
}

web.xml:
(under listeners section)

web.xml
<listener>
  <listener-class>mypackagename.ActionGlobalMessagesListener</listener-class>
</listener>